Managing South Korean Online Gaming Culture
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Acceleration and Information: Managing South Korean Online Gaming Culture DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Anthropology by Stephen C. Rea Dissertation Committee: Associate Professor Keith M. Murphy, Chair Professor Tom Boellstorff Professor Bill Maurer 2015 © 2015 Stephen C. Rea TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii CURRICULUM VITAE v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vi CHAPTER 1: Playing at the Speed of Life: Korean Online Gaming Culture and the 1 Aesthetic Representations of an Advanced Information Society CHAPTER 2: “Slow to Industrialize, but Let’s Lead in Informatization”: The Korea 31 Information Infrastructure, the IMF, and Online Games CHAPTER 3: Situating Korean Online Gaming Culture Offline 71 CHAPTER 4: Managing the Gap: The Temporal, Spatial, and Social Entailments of 112 Playing Online Games CHAPTER 5: Crafting Stars: e-Sports and the Professionalization of Korean Online 144 Gaming Culture CHAPTER 6: “From Heroes to Monsters”: “Addiction” and Managing Online Gaming 184 Culture CONCLUSION 235 BIBLIOGRAPHY 242 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of many people in both my academic and non-academic lives. I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my committee members: Keith M. Murphy, who has supported this project since day one, provided guidance regarding theoretical frameworks, and shown remarkable poise in dealing with an occasionally difficult advisee; Tom Boellstorff, whose work on digital culture and virtual worlds has been an inspiration for my own research, and whose methodological, theoretical, and professional expertise in anthropology has been invaluable; and Bill Maurer, who helped me frame my research in a way that would make it interesting for a broader audience, and who embodies what contemporary anthropologists can contribute not only to scholarship but also to engagement with diverse interest groups.
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